SCHS surfer back from China 3rd in world

She's home from China, listed now as the Association of Surfing Professionals' No. 3 female longboard surfer in the world for 2012. She's only 16.

San Clemente's Karina Rozunko had never tried anything at this level. She flew to China's Hainan Island to compete over Thanksgiving Weekend in the Swatch Girls Pro China, the only event on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals women's world longboard tour.

Rozunko, a junior at San Clemente High School, advanced through six rounds of competition and reached the semifinals before falling to Australia's Chelsea Williams, the eventual runner-up to champion Kelia Moniz of Hawaii.

"That was insane!" Rozunko commented this week. "Honestly, I went into that contest with no expectations."

She's back now at San Clemente High School, a member of the surf team, training for the team's state and national tournaments and for a longboard contest at Sayulita, Mexico, that she won last year.

We asked her about surfing in China:

Q. Was it different than surfing at home?Â

A. The water was really warm and only a few people in the water at a timeÂ

Q. We hear you brought home a little itch.

A. The sea lice were horrible! I looked like I had chicken pox. Between the sea lice and mosquito bites, I was pretty itchy. But thankfully a local Chinese man got me some cream to put on them. I'm fine now

Q. Describe the local Chinese people, and the island.

A. The island is beautiful. The people were funny – they don't see many American people, if any at all, and they ask to take pictures and stare. But in general, they were really nice and inviting.

Q. How did you get into the contest?

A. I qualified forÂ the world ChampionshipsÂ by placing first inÂ aÂ WLA contest in Ventura last year

Q. How big is your trophy?

Â A. My trophy was pretty cool. It was a bronze crown for third place. It wouldn't fit in my suitcase so I wore it on the plane. I got some pretty strangeÂ looks from everyone.

Q. You came out of nowhere to place third against veteran pros. How was that?

A. I just trained as hard as I could and I came out with a pretty good result. It was cool surfing against all the girls I have been looking up to ever since I started surfing – and even cooler competing andÂ placing higher than them.

Q. Any shout-outs?

A. I was stoked having one of my good friends, Tory Gilkerson, over there with me. She was surfing amazing the whole event.